First, in Rumpus Saturday Fiction, Sherman Alexie’s shares three short stories—”Fixed Income,” “Honor Society,” and “Valediction”—that all offer his trademark whimsy and insight into the human condition. Three different teenagers struggle with poverty, endemic racism, and social exclusion, and must depend upon themselves to make the right choices in difficult moral situations.

Then, in the Sunday Essay, Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez tells a sad tale of an old relationship forever fixed to a certain time and place: Ankara, Turkey. A visiting teacher at the university,Vaquera-Vásquez meets Elif at a party and they become inseparable for a time. The relationship ends, and there is a tragic loss, but its legacy echoes through and overlaps with the writer’s memories of his time in Ankara.